The Framework that Changed the Field: Academic Advising’s Evolution - Adventures in Advising

Adventures in Advising takes a trip down memory lane with two legends of the field! In this special episode, guest host Dr. Jenny Bloom from Florida Atlantic University sits down with her longtime mentor and friend, Dr. Wes Habley, to explore his incredible journey from music major to one of the foundational voices in academic advising. 🌟

From developing the seven organizational models of advising, to launching NACADA’s Summer Institute, to shaping how generations of advisors think about conceptual, informational, and relational skills—Wes shares the stories, turning points, and even a few behind-the-scenes moments that defined his career.

This conversation is part history lesson, part masterclass, and all heart —celebrating the relationships and legacies that continue to shape the profession today. 

Tune in to hear how passion, mentorship, and a little bit of serendipity can change not only one career—but an entire field!

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Well, hello and welcome back to the Adventures in Advising podcast. This is Matt Markin, and I am thrilled not only for you to listen to this episode, but thrilled to welcome back to the podcast. Dr. Jenny Bloom from Florida Atlantic University. Jenny has been not only a guest but has also been a guest host, and is returning as a guest host for this episode of the podcast. So Jenny, welcome back.

Jenny Bloom  
Thanks so much, Matt. I am super excited about today's episode and the person that I'm going to be interviewing. So thank you so much for this opportunity. I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and I can't wait to see you in person at the NACADA annual conference, and I'm not going to take any more time. You have a fantastic person you're going to be interviewing today, so I turn it over to you.

Jenny Bloom  
Excellent. Thank you so much, Matt, so it is my honor and privilege to interview today, not only one of the giants of the field of advising, but also my my personal and professional mentor and my really good friend, Wes Habley. So, Wes welcome to Adventures and Advising.

Wes Habley  
Thank you, Jenny. It's really good to be here chat with you again.

Jenny Bloom  
So Wes the traditional first question on the adventures in advising podcast is tell us a little bit about your journey, and I'm gonna ask you to cover from your undergraduate career through your doctorate to get us started, so Wes.

Wes Habley  
Okay. Like many people, I excelled in the field of music when I was in high school, so I went to the University of Illinois with the intent of being a music teacher, and I discovered, when I was doing my student teaching that I would have to listen to fifth graders try to make sounds on instruments every year for the rest of my life. And decided that was not quite for me. So I basically went on, and I was actively involved as an undergraduate president of the residence halls, men's residence halls, and President of the concert band at the University of Illinois. But I went on for because I started getting involved with a lot of student activities and such. I took a master's degree in student development at the University of Illinois, and then my first position after the Masters was as a residence hall director at Illinois State University, 16 story freshman men's residence hall, with all kinds of things going on there. And while I was at Illinois State then, after about two years in the residence halls, there was a significant change in leadership and management of the of the of the student development program there, and they made some major changes in housing. And so I was left without a job for a short period of time. And so happened that there was a part time academic advisors job available in the Academic Advising Center at Illinois State. And so it was half time, and it allowed me then to go on and and finish my doctorate in higher education administration at Illinois State, while I was working half time with a specialty in I took all the courses I could in higher education law at that point in time, so finished a doctorate, then at Illinois State, and after two years as an academic advisor, the Director of Advising position came open At Illinois State, and I applied and I became director so and finished my PA finished my doctorate while I was Director of Advising there Illinois State.

Jenny Bloom  
Excellent. So of course, you and I have both Illinois State and the University of Illinois in common. We kind of switched our our bachelor's and doctorate. I got my bachelor's at Illinois State and my doctorate at the University of Illinois. So I want to ask you about the fascination with higher ed law. What What led you to take as many courses as you could in higher ed law?

Wes Habley  
Well, there were two reasons. Number one is and most people would not even may not recognize the name, but MM Chambers was a significant faculty member at the University of Illinois, and he edited several books called the colleges and the courts and several other things. So I took three courses from him and at the the second reason, and found him to be very inspiring and a great, a great teacher who's now retired and has passed away. But the other, the other thing, was significantly interested in the law. I was one of those, one of those people who got reasonably good law school admission test scores and was stricken by the fact that they were not that, not good enough to get into necessarily, a class, a law school. So I was interested in the law. And as it turned out, my son, my son is a lawyer now, and so there's, there must be something in the genes a little bit.

Jenny Bloom  
Yeah, there must be. Now, another question I wanted to ask you about was, my understanding is that you had an opportunity to take a class from Terry O'Banion.

Wes Habley  
Yeah, that was in my master's degree program at Illinois. I found him. I didn't realize that he had bounced around a little bit, but he was not at Illinois for very long. But he was an outstanding teacher. The one of the things that he did in his class was it was a very participatory class, and at the beginning of class, he divided us up into into teams, and our responsibility was, throughout the course of the semester, to to basically build an innovative community college and and we had kind of an outline of the things, the areas we needed to cover, and how we would do that. I found that to be real intriguing as a teacher and as a as an individual, he was a very compelling guy. The other thing that that he asked me to do, and I guess this is typical ask your graduate students to do, this, is he wrote a book on the community college, community college student development with Alice Thurston, and during the course of the semester I was in his class, he asked me to do, as a final project, to do the chapter of summaries, or the section summaries, for the book. So I guess in some ways, my my first publication was uncredited, but it was the introduction to groups of chapters in that book. So honored to be very good. I also it was also a really wonderful experience for me to to introduce him, I think, at the 2000 NACADA conference when he spoke, so great guy.

Jenny Bloom  
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. What a what a special opportunity to have been one of his students. Can you tell me a little bit about your own personal experience as a student with advising at as an undergraduate and or graduate student?

Wes Habley  
Are you really going to ask you're really asking me this question I really am, because I often talked about it in some of my presentations. And when I was an undergraduate, I had an academic advisor whose name shall remain who shall remain nameless, but this individual was about two years from retirement, and her field of expertise was harpsichord pedagogy. My advising sort of went like this. Every semester we'd get a little message from from the advisor saying it's time to set up your appointments. And I do that, and I'd show up at the appointed time. The advisor would be running late. I'd walk in, and the advisor would say to me, have you thought about what you want to take? And I'd say, yeah, these are the classes I'm thinking, these are the classes I have to take. These are the classes I don't want to take, but I have to take. And these are the classes, you know. And the advisor said to me, that looks good to me, let me sign your let me sign your program. And that was it. A little later on, you know, when as as a as came into the field of advising. I recognize the fact that it was so much more than signing programs. And there were so there was, you know, why didn't Miss Wilson asked me questions about why I wanted to teach music, you know, and other kinds of things. And that's. That's when I said, you know, literally listening to students make sounds on their instruments in fifth grade every year for the rest of my life, wound up not being exactly what I had in mind. So anyway, my graduate, my graduate advising, as it, as it turned out, boy, I don't, I don't remember my master's degree advisor. I remember several professors, and I think I told you the story about one of them, but at the doctoral level, it so happened that the advisor that I had was also the head of a of a grant for the department of vocational technical education in in in state of Illinois, and I was, I should have, I should have said that I spent one year out of the residence halls before I got the advisor job. I was the associate director, of a grant, a grant for the DVTE department of vocational technical education to use competency based instruction to train vocational, vocational school technical school administrators. And so I worked in building learning packages for that year before I became an advisor. So but anyway, the person who was my, my doctoral advisor, was the person that headed this grant, who went later went on to be, I think, the Dean of School of Education at East Tennessee State, after he was at Illinois State.

Jenny Bloom  
Another similarity that we have is sounds like your student teaching was an aha moment for you as it was for me when I realized that I didn't want to be a physical education teacher for the rest of my life. But just like you, I I've kind of come full circle, and I certainly don't regret my undergraduate degree. Can you talk a little bit about how music has continued to play an important role in your life?

Wes Habley  
Well, that it, it is the thing to which I retired. As a matter of fact, music was meant to be an avocation, and literally, even after I completed my doctorate, I continued to play when I could in when I was at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, I played in the local symphony and other kinds of things. But since retirement, it's really taken off. I play in the local community band I can I play in a senior citizens band called The New Horizons band. Maybe some people are familiar with that. But I also play in a German band out of the Amana Colonies and a Czech polka band out of Cedar Rapids and but the thing I value most is that since I've retired, I've done musical direction or played in pit orchestras for local community theater productions, probably about 60 of them since I retired in 25 Yeah, that's really cool. Music was an avocation and a first love. I just didn't want to teach it.

Jenny Bloom  
Yes, I understand. I totally understand that. Okay, so where we left off in terms of your journey was at Illinois State. You said, After three years, you became the Director of Advising you obviously live in Iowa. Now you mentioned a stop in Wisconsin, so maybe you can kind of lead us through the rest of your career journey.

Wes Habley  
So after the after the work as an academic advisor, and the one year hiatus into the vocational grant, the Director of Advising became open at Illinois State, and the Director of Advising position I applied for that I was somewhat I wasn't surprised that I got it, but I was very, very pleased, and thought I had really made it when I got to be the Director of Advising. Interestingly enough, a lot of a lot of the things that I had, a lot of things that I developed in terms of supporting advising, came about as experience at Illinois State, and I was there for five years, I think I cut my teeth on all the pivotal issues in academic advising. I was hired by the Vice President of Student Affairs, and by the time my tenure was up, I was reporting to the Vice President of Academic Affairs. So I have opinions. I have. Significant opinions on that, but also the organizational models that are in the literature. The seven organizational models came about as as as with my involvement at Illinois State, and look, trying to find people who were doing the same stuff I was doing, and didn't find very many, but certainly wet my appetite for trying to figure out how these things were organized, the of the also when I was an academic advisor, I also work with peer advisors. And so my support for peer advising comes from my work as Director of Academic Advising. Where I where I had in that Advising Center. I had 1111, the equivalent of of seven full time staff advisors, and I had seven faculty members quarter time release from their departments, and 39 peer advisors. Wow, that's a lot. That's where my support for peer advising developed, and actually wound up being the first article I ever wrote.

Jenny Bloom  
So, yeah, you know, in terms of peer advising, it's obviously a really popular delivery method or model today. But what when you talk about peer advising being, you know, something that that obviously was near and dear to your heart, what, what was, what did you see with those peer advisors, and the impact that they were having?

Wes Habley  
The chance to connect to students on on a more realistic everyday kind of life way to the point where I actually my dissertation was to compare student satisfaction of the faculty advisors that were in my center, the full time staff advisors that were in my center, and the And the peer advisors that were in my center. And so it was a satisfaction. Satisfaction is not a measure of effectiveness, but it was pretty clear that, pretty clear that the the peer advisors and or the professional staff stood out in terms of student satisfaction at a higher level than the faculty members and those who were findings I could not announce at Illinois State for political reasons.

Jenny Bloom  
Yeah, yeah, I can imagine.

Wes Habley  
And again, it was a satisfaction. It was pretty straightforward. It was only eight or nine questions, but across all of the eight or nine questions, either the peer advisors or the professional advisors, staff advisors came in on top of the three. So anyway, so that's that's and that resulted in, actually, my the first journal article I ever wrote, which is another story entirely, expecting fully for that article to be thrown back in my face as not being not being important enough, or not being well written enough, but It was accepted pretty much without, without any editing, and it surprised the heck out of me. But anyway, you wanted me to talk about my so I stayed at Illinois State for for in the director shop for five years, I began looking around, and that's when I realized there was kind of a career conundrum that was I wanted to move up in the higher education world, and I had aspirations to be maybe a VP for student development, probably. But as I, as I tried to move up the ladder student development, people were still not didn't want a piece of didn't necessarily want a piece of the action in academic advising. And so they were saying, well, academic advising is really an academic kind of thing, so you're really not a student affairs person. And and the academic affairs people were saying, well, that's like counseling. So you're, you're Yeah, and so that was sort of the career puzzle for me. So I took a move from there to University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire in 1981 and where I had, I broadened my responsibilities. I had academic advising orientation and career development under me at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire still aspiring to be a VP for student student development of some type or another, but still finding the same, I don't want to say biases, but still finding, well, you know, you're, you're really not an academic affairs person, you're really not a student affairs person. Yes, anyway, so that's about that time, literally at Eau Claire, I began to write, and I began to to to present, and when it became pretty obvious that I wasn't going to move up ACT American College Testing came along and they had a unit there called the Center for Advancement of educational practices. At one point in time, it was run... Some of the listeners may be familiar with.... They're not that active and visible right now because they've been into brought into a larger company, I think. But anyway, they act. Had a center, which was called the Center for the Advancement of Educational Practices, was primarily an educational unit that did workshops and conferences. And individuals there had heard me speak, I think about academic advising. They had already done one or two academic advising workshops, day long or two day conferences, basically that they had presented, and I think they saw my knowledge or my ability in advising, and I went to a city as the associate director of that center. And then several NACADA, you know, began to develop, and ACT and NACADA had many joint programs for a period of time, which I kind of worked with, but, but that's where I got, you know, the one when I was at ACT, I had the opportunity to write and present more, and most of the literature and most of the things that I have written or published have really come as a result of a CT support for that center.

Jenny Bloom  
So yeah, and I've got all kinds of books here, from your time with the status of academic advising, you had the ACT national survey of academic advising, and this was really important work, because it was a survey of what was happening on a national basis on in academic advising. And so can you talk a little bit about these surveys and and the the impact of them?

Wes Habley  
Well, the the surveys were actually started. The first survey was done even before I was at ACT, and it was done by David Crockett and I forget the date of it. It probably was 1979 I believe. And it was critically important to have more data about academic advising, practices and programs, the second, the second. But there were five of them totally, five of them done totally. And interestingly enough, I just was a I had final reports for four of them. I couldn't find the, I think the second or third one. But so those those surveys were done in conjunction with ACT's research staff, and later on, I forget what I think the fourth and fifth survey were done in conjunction with NACADA, yes, you know, and they resulted in four more full blown monographs and such. But I, you know, I think what they what the surveys did is, is to put a spotlight on advising and practices, and at least give, gives, gave practitioners some idea of the kinds, the breadth of practices that were going on across the country. And actually, once we got into the third or fourth one, it was pretty obvious. There were some trends that were taking place in in advising offices, advising programs across the country, and people were beginning to discover. That there was more than faculty only model and advising center. There were several different kinds of advising centers, the models that were shared, models one in which the the staff advisors and the the faculty advisors shared the responsibility in some way, shape or form, in different ways. But basically, that's, that's where the models, the seven models, really came from, in a sense. And then we were able, once we were able to define the models, we were able to study how those models have changed, the degree to which they were deployed, yes, in the changes in that activity that over time.

Jenny Bloom  
So, yeah, I mean such important information and as different colleges and universities were trying to either create or rework their advising structures, you know, I, I don't, I don't know that a lot of people really understand that, you know, this was your work on the organizational models that those seven models are, you know, still discussed. And, of course, different people have, have advocated for other additional models, but nonetheless, like this was really groundbreaking work on your part.

Wes Habley  
Well, you know, and you and I have talked about this. It actually started because I was curious about how students negotiated the system, the advising system, and that's, that's really was a primary interest, and it was also stimulated by the fact that my good friend and colleague, Tom Grites, wrote a document, an ERIC document, I think in the in the mid 70s, or maybe 1977 where he said, every institution is unique and and no two institutions are alike in terms of how they approach advising and Tom, if you're listening to this, that's a paraphrase. But anyway, frankly, I was basically saying no, there has to be some more structural kinds of thing we can look at and and so, you know, again, it began as a flow model kind of thing. How do students negotiate a system of academic advising? And the models derived from the notion of following students through programs. I only originally had six, six models, but the seventh model came about at the first West Coast National Conference in I forgot where it was not it was like the third or fourth national conference. Anyway, I was doing the presentation on the models and Cal State System. Had a had model number seven, which, which I now I'm trying to remember which one, which, which of the seven models it was, but that's, that's how we got the seventh model. I think it was. It was a model in which staff advisors took care of general education policies and procedures, and faculty advisors advise the curriculum in the program. So it was the dual model, the dual model now I remember.

Jenny Bloom  
So I want to shift gears to some other books that that you edited and contributed and wrote the first and second edition of academic advising, a comprehensive handbook. And I remember when the first handbook came out, what a groundbreaking work that was to be able to go to one place and really get an idea of the breadth and depth of this field of academic advising. Can you talk a little bit about, in particular, that first edition, how it came about?

Wes Habley  
I can't. I don't know the exact birth of that addition, except that Virginia, Gordon Tom Grites and I were asked to do it. I believe the first in current, the first kernel of an idea came from Josie bass. I don't know if they didn't necessarily go to Virginia. I think they came through NACADA and and NACADA literally talked to Virginia and Tom, and then me, and I think that's basically how, how that how that was, was born. And so Virginia Tom and I split up the the sections we you know, we met on a lengthy basis, and split up the sections brainstorm the additional authors that we wanted from a particular sections of the book. And and then each of us took a section or more, one or more sections of the book, and and edited and worked with the with the author, individual authors, to to get the chapters that was, that was in 2000 I do, I do remember it was a, the book came out in 2000 you mentioned, you know, fact that it was the first time that there was a intelligent treatment of the entire field of advising. What I remember most about I remember two things about the book. Number one is, we had a signing session at the 2000 national conference, and it was, it was in conjunction with the lunch, or we had set aside an hour to have book signing, but we had, most, almost all of the authors were there to sign their chapters. And it was, we were there for two hours, and there was still a line. What hit me, there was so many people felt validated by having something they could put their hands on and say, See, there is, yes, there is substance, substance of this. It's just not a bunch of a bunch of soft, tired people wanting to do stuff for for students. There is some substance here.

Jenny Bloom  
I totally agree. I remember that at the at the 2000 conference. In fact, I think that's where you and I first you know you became aware of me. I was aware of you long before then, but, and I have my, my signed copy right here. Wes Alright, yeah...

Wes Habley  
You made me wonder where my signed copy is. I mean, I have all I have everything I've written that I could collect that's on a shelf over here. I'm sure I've got the signed copies.

Jenny Bloom  
Yeah, and I've got my signed edition of, the second edition that both all three of you, Virginia and Tom and you signed. So I'm feel very, very blessed to to have those. So Wes, I want to talk a little bit about that, that keynote address, and what an impact that had on me, because I knew that you were spot on. And so I remember, after you gave that keynote, that I actually tracked you down right afterwards in the hallway, I don't know if you remember this, and just said, Wow, what a fantastic keynote. And I, you know, I told you about our similar backgrounds at the University of Illinois in Illinois State, and you were, you were so kind to me. But how that did impact me was that, you know, Fast forward seven years later, when I became president of NACADA, that that was what, you know, my main agenda item was, was to increase the amount of research on the field of academic advising. And so I'm really, very, very grateful that you made that point, and you drove it home quite beautifully during the 2000 conference keynote that you did so So, I mean, that's just though, you know one of many, many contributions that you had made, you've made to Nakata, and I would love to kind of shift gears, because you were a founding board member at my calculation that you were the fifth president of Nakata from 1986 to 1988 you were treasurer. You founded the Nakata Summer Institute, and you were the director of this summer institute for 22 years I would love for you to take us back in time to the founding of NACADA and what it was like to be a founding board member.

Wes Habley  
Well, the founding of NACADA was interesting because it's, you know, literally, the first. Uh meeting of a national meeting of academic advisors was in Burlington, Vermont in 1970 1977 and Tony Tremblay led that. But it was, it was then kind of interesting, because later in the spring, in the spring following the 1977 conference, Mike McCauley from Ball State University, and I, he was one of the first colleagues I found, even, even before Nakata was he had gone to the conference, and he had said, you know, there's, there's, there's a movement of what to start an organization, to actually start an organization, and and I said, I'm in basically. I said, however that works. And what really happened then is the second conference was held in Memphis, was still not an organization, but at that at that conference, a group of people, I would say, seven or eight or nine of us. No, it wasn't that large, five or six of us, maybe, and included Virginia Gordon, and included Mike McCauley myself. There were several other people who later became board members, decided that we would need to draft some set of bylaws. We all traveled to Boston. Bruce Wheelock herridge was at Wheelock College, and then we, we drafted the we drafted the bylaws. And it was very interesting, because Mike McCauley and I drove, drove from Illinois, Indiana to to Boston, and this was the night that the the Iran hostages were taken. Oh, wow. We listened to the radio entire we drove overnight to get to the the meeting. We all, we slept on the floor. No, we had a we had a hotel room. What we all, nobody had any money. So five, five guys stayed in the same hotel room. We drafted the bylaws. The bylaws were then presented in Omaha, and there was significant debate and discussion about the bylaws. Boy, now you're there was and the there were individuals who wanted to buy the bylaws to state that there had to be so many minority individuals on on the on the board, but all board members were elected. And so it was so we had. We came up with, we came up with a compromise. And we actually came up with a compromise that saved the bylaws by having committee heads appointed, sit on the board, and saw that the bylaws were approved then in Omaha, and we were off and running. The next big phase that I was involved with would have been the establishment of the Executive Office for several for several years the conference. Well, the conference was run for several years by the conference planning people at K State, but that was their only responsibility in would have been the early, early, early 80s, we began to explore Gary Kramer, Carol Ryan and I were a three member committee that we actually lend them and put out a bid proposal for to house the executive office of NACADA, and there were three institutions that applied. Interestingly, one, and so we we met with individuals those institutions to discuss their proposals. One of the institutions withdrew. A second institution was in the process of reorganization, and couldn't commit at that point in time to get it off the ground when we wanted to get So Kate, and Kate was the bid that house executive office. So that was my, my idea of dates. I don't I could figure. Figure out what they were. But this was executive office came into being 9089, or 90 something like that. I think I'd have to go back and look may have happened even before then. It probably happened in 83, 84, 85.

Jenny Bloom  
Yeah, and then you were president for a couple of years. 

Wes Habley  
There was a reorganization of of NACADA, of putting more emphasis on the executive office, and at one point in time, the term then became one year. So it's one year, a good deal of responsibility that the President might have undertaken in two years was seated, was was turned over, in a sense, to the executive office. Quite a few things were turned over to the executive office. And then, you know, the executive office obviously grew from that point, from that point forward, right? So 587, I think there were maybe only one more president after me that had a two year term. Okay, have been one year.

Jenny Bloom  
So tell me about the the Summer Institute. Obviously, the Summer Institute continues on to this day. How did, how did that founding happen?

Wes Habley  
I thought it'd be a good idea.

Jenny Bloom  
I think it was a very good idea, Wes.

Wes Habley  
So this, again, was in conjunction with my work at ACT, for two years, I had run a summer institute on high school to college transition, and that was one In which brought college personnel and high school counselors or administrators to it was basically close to a week long, kind of an activity that never really, ever really took off to the extent that we had hoped, but it was a wonderful experience to put them together and for a week and talk about the transition process from high school to college anyway. So again, the unit I was responsible for or worked with at ACT was charged with planning conferences and workshops. So I thought, you know, I thought at least the delivery system of those high school to college transition workshops would probably work the academic advising. So the first, oh my gosh, the first seven or eight, six or seven of them were done in conjunction with the conference center for conference planning at the University of Iowa. They were housed at the at the hotel at the university. They included a university faculty member from from, most often from guidance and counseling area. And the first, the first summer institute. We had six faculty members, two from two from four year public colleges, two from four year private colleges, and two from from community colleges. We had, I think, 65 participants, some of whom are, well, I don't think they're still active, but some of them remained active for quite some time. It grew from there, and at the earliest stages of the Summer Institute, ACT and the conference planning unit at the university really handled all the details. I think it was in 1993 we turned the administration over to NACADA in terms of handling all the details, in a sense, so the summer instances, then, you know, basically, you know, moved to move to the administration, NACADA, administering it and and that's pretty much the way it's been ever since.

Jenny Bloom  
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, when you think about all of the the advisors lives that you've impacted through the summer institute, and thus all of the students that those participants impacted. You know, that's very humbling. So, yeah, important such an important contribution. Wes speaking of contributions. I want to shift to talk a little bit about some of your. Scholarly contributions in terms of concepts that are continue to be relevant to this day, and where I'd like to in addition to the organizational models, which we've already covered, the conceptual, informational and relational components of academic advising, professional development, training, obviously, those are alive and well today, being used broadly by NACADA, but by the field. So the this, this was your original work, so I would love to hear the origin story on. On that origin story?

Wes Habley  
Well, first of all, it when I first started the job at the ACT National Center for educational practices, Dave Crockett and I were doing workshop day and a half workshop conferences on academic advising, and one of the topics that we needed to cover was, was actually training. And I beginning, began to look for anchors on training and how I could really anchor it, or how, what could we, what could we pin it on? And you know, I think part of what I was were the ideas generated. Were the first job I had at the advising center at Illinois State, before I became director, also had peer advisors with it, and the peer advisors, I didn't underplay my role as an advisor there, but I was actually coordinator in the advising center, coordinator of advising for the College of Applied Science and Technology, and I had five peer advisors who worked with me, and I was responsible for training them. And so, you know, I went, I really looked around for, for, you know, for any help on training advisors, yeah, and all like, all I could find was give them a catalog and make them learn the catalog, make them learn, make them learn the policies, make them learn this and make them learn that. And so when I began to think about training those, those peer advisors, it you had to ask questions about, why is this all important? Yeah, since conceptual and yeah, and you had to give them some skills to to learn about asking open ended questions and and about making sure that they heard what they thought they heard, and other kinds of things like that and that that really turned out to be The relational part of it, plus a good deal of a couple of courses in my master's program and two courses in my doctoral program dealt with counseling and group counseling. And I know, I know, you know, if you don't have a relationship, you you can't you can't help if you haven't established, you can say, establish trust. You can say, have a relationship. You can say, be genuine, be a Be yourself and genuine person. But if you don't have a relationship, you know, whatever you have to share is, is not going to be received. That's right. And so that's kind of how, it's, it's it started, and then from there, it seemed pretty logical to say they needed to know information. They needed to know why it's important, and they needed to make it work. Yeah, coining the term, I guess I coined the terms just because I needed an anchor to do the workshop and such. And that also, you know, played into the advising surveys, where we talked about the kinds of topics that were covered. In the advising surveys, we asked about the topics that were covered and in advisor training, and it was given the facts, ma'am, just give them the facts. Yeah, give them a catalog. Let them, let them, you know, yeah, what they're doing. And it just, it just seemed, you know, if we were going to be, if we're going to have an impact, we needed to do more than just give them information.

Jenny Bloom  
Yeah. For sure, for sure. So, speaking of relationships, our relationship has has been a really important relationship in my life, in my career, of course, it started in 2000 as far as you knew, because that's when you became, I think, aware of me as a person. But you know, like it would be hard for me, Wes to convey to you how grateful I am for the doors that you opened for me, the support that you gave me, and I'll just give you some like specific examples, because I think relationships really are the key thing. But I think the first time that we had an opportunity to co present together was with Virginia Gordon and with Kathy by our ski and it was a presentation that we did, I think, at first in Ottawa, that was titled developing graduate courses in academic advising. And Wow. What a thrill that was for me to be co presenting with Wes Hadley and Virginia Gordon and, of course, Kathy byarski, who's continues to be a dear friend of mine, but that you gave me that opportunity, not only in 2001 but it's also in 2002 and 2003 and probably one of the most humbling things in my life, my professional life, was when in 2003 you invited me to to join the the faculty for The Nakada Summer Institute, and I had the the great honor of you, know, doing that in 2003 2005 2008 in 2007 you know, you invited me to co author a chapter in this second edition of the academic advising handbook, which was on the topic of moving on from college. And then, you know, the support you gave me when I served as president from 2007 2008 and then in 2011 we had the first appreciative advising Institute. And I asked you if you would be willing to serve as on the faculty for that appreciative advising Institute in Las Vegas at the Imperial Palace Hotel. And you said yes, and that gave instant credibility to this, this work that I had started doing in 2002 and then, you know, in 2012 I had the great honor of co authoring this book, increasing persistence with you. And Steve Robbins, I think you know, when people talk about mentoring, sometimes it seems like it can be just a one time kind of thing, but boy, when you talk about sponsoring and advocating for someone, and especially in rooms where I was not you were doing that for me over years. And I don't think appreciative advising would be what it is. I don't think I would be. I don't know that I'd be a faculty member right now, were it not for you and for your belief in me, especially at a time there have been many times when I didn't believe in myself, and you gave me opportunities to to make mistakes, you overlooked Some of my mistakes. They say wisdoms, knowing when to overlook mistakes. And you did that for me. Wes and you know you continue to play this really important role in my life. You know, we meet once a month on Zoom, and you continue to be just a source of of inspiration. One of the things I've most appreciated about you is that we don't always agree on on things, and we've been able to to talk through those things. The hub of the wheel is, you know, a famous example of that, but always with the greatest respect. Yes, and I just want to thank you, us from the bottom of my heart, for all that you have done. And that's I mean, these are just a few things that you have done for me. Let me be very clear. But over, over the last you know, 25 years of my life, you have always been there for me, and I can never pay you back, but I sure am trying to pay it forward by, you know, mentoring others so, so thank you.

Wes Habley  
Well, difficult to respond to that in in the true sense, but you totally dismiss the notion that maybe, maybe it's Illinois State University's motto is, gladly show you learn and gladly teach. So you underestimate the impact you've had on me as as a person who who challenges at the same time and attempts to take the issue to the next level and to get to the root cause of stuff, you know, you, you've, you underplay the notion of how much a relationship means to the mentor as well as to the mentee. Because, you know, people talk about the ideas that I have, or the, you know, the, what do you call them? Organizational models, or the conceptual, informational, relational, I the idea, the ideas that we shared, are more important than who gets credit for the discussion and who gets credit for the for the ideas. And, you know, I've had people come up to me at conferences and go, you know, I don't know if you know anything about these models, but we have, it's sort of like and I try to be nice, but anyway, Jenny, you underestimate the power that a mentee can have on a mentor. So don't ever forget that, because at the same point in time you were challenging me with fresh ideas, ideas I had never thought about before, and those are all been real critical and probably have made me stay vitally engaged for longer than I had thought I would be on that topic so but anyway, I thank you too. 

Jenny Bloom  
Well, I have subsequently learned that right as I've had the great good fortune of being a mentor to many young professionals. I've always learned, you know more from them than they probably have learned from me. And that is, I think, in my mind, it's one of the great secrets about not only mentoring but academic advising, is that this isn't a selfless profession, that you know that when you're doing it from the heart and you're building those relationships, I've always found that I get more out of being an advisor, I learn more, I become more. I become better because of my interactions with my students. And I think it's one of the great secrets out there. I feel like you know as I'm winding down my career, it, it's a secret that I really want to share, and I learned that secret from you. So thank you for that, for that gift, and...

Wes Habley  
Thank you for sharing it with others.

Jenny Bloom  
Yeah, my, my total honor. So Wes, I think we will call it a wrap. Thank you for making this time to allow me to interview and again. Thank you for everything that you have done for me.

Wes Habley  
Thank you. I appreciate you.